Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this important motion because our bilateral relationship with the United States is incredibly important. It's important for more than historical reasons, though we should never forget that, barely a year into our diplomatic relationship, the United States supplanted the United Kingdom as the only great power able and willing to help defend Australia against the enemy after the shocking fall of Singapore left us totally isolated. This history is particularly alive for us in Darwin—the people of my electorate, Darwin and Palmerston—where American soldiers, airmen and sailors fought and died with their Australian comrades during the bombings of 1942 and subsequent operations in northern Australia.

It's important for more than strategic reasons, though we should never forget that it's our alliance with the United States that gives us the high-tech capability edge, and the comrades, without which ours would be a smallish boutique defence force defending a large continent. Australian defence industry has produced kit with the United States, and by ourselves, that surpasses what the United States is able to do alone, so it's two-way but certainly our relationship, our alliance, gives us an edge.

We in Darwin regularly witness our forces' interoperability in the regular deployments of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin, who have begun arriving for this year's 1,200-strong modified rotation. This rotation, started by Prime Minister Julia Gillard together with US President Barack Obama, has gone from strength to strength over the years. A sensible decision was made this year to postpone the deployment due to COVID; however, for equally sensible reasons, this year's deployment, a little belatedly, is now beginning. They're always welcome in the north.

Our relationship, our alliance, is important for more than these interoperability, economic and social reasons. Though these are significant, including bilateral trade and investment amounting to about $1.1 trillion, as this motion states, we shouldn't forget the strong trans-Pacific people-to-people linkages, friendships, intermarriages—including with some of our colleagues—professional connections and visa arrangements that make Australia the US ally with the best labour market access, to the envy of all others, with hospitality reciprocated on this end, here in our lucky country.

Each of these factors is weighty but does not exhaust the importance of the US-Australia relationship. It's also about the values that underpin our successful alliance, which only strengthened when others, like the Warsaw Pact, fell apart when there was no longer an enemy to fight. Our alliance is cemented by values that we fought together in the Great War to defend, namely liberty, the rights of small states to have a voice and not be crushed by larger ones, and the rule of law above the rule of might. These are the values we uphold today when, together, we advocate for the peaceful settlement of disputes, freedom of navigation in accordance with international law, universal human rights and other global public goods.

I want to thank the US Consul General in Melbourne, Michael Klein, who has done great service to the NT. I also want to echo Ambassador Culvahouse's apt description of ours as an unbreakable alliance.

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